Isla Holbox, Mexico’s secret beach

Tangerine-tinged Isla Holbox was long Mexico’s best-kept beach secret, just down the coast from Tulum. The word may have trickled out, but it has held on to its otherworldly vibe

I hear the flamingos before I turn and look up to see them: seven, pink and white against the dawn blue, gently gliding east. Around my feet, slender silver fish drift in orderly shoals, scattering suddenly to send fine spray into the air, alarmed by the pterodactyl-shaped frigatebirds circling above – or by me, wading through the shallows. Then the seabed shifts; in a cloud of white sand, a small, beautiful ray, also white, rises up and takes off for deeper water.

HAMMOCKS AT PUNTA COCO

The morning hours on Isla Holbox are otherworldy. There’s the slightest of breezes and the soft light makes the clear, milky-green waters easy on the eye. The beach is almost deserted: a couple of runners, a sea angler preparing kit. The inshore waters are knee-high, with a thin line showing a sandbank, beyond which the sea is darker but still calm, warm, clear, for the teeming, curiously tame, marine life.

So far, so paradisiacal. But returning after an eight-year hiatus, I’m struck by changes on Holbox, a 40km-long sandbar off the Yucatán peninsula’s steamy north coast. A beach runs the entire length of its northern edge. To the south are lush mangroves and crystalline freshwater lagoons, part of the Yum Balam biosphere reserve. Pirates hid here once, Creoles fleeing the Mayan rebellions came at the end of the 19th century. But since then, and for more than 100 years, it’s been a domain of fishermen and their families: these are the real holboxeños. The isle has remained isolated.

FISH, SHRIMP AND OCTOPUS TACOS AT BARBA NEGRA

Change has come fast, but not too febrile. The main plaza has been enlivened by murals and solid-looking street furniture. As well as the little shacks for fish and tacos, there are now Argentine steakhouses, sushi joints, cocktail bars, cute cafés, new Italians as well as old favourites doing the island’s trademark lobster pizzas. Shops still focus on crafts and this place even has its own skilled luthier (string-instrument maker). Holbox is bright, bold, makeshift.

PUNTA CALIZA'S POOL

Almost all the beachfront hotels follow the Mexican palapa standard of thatched roofs and adobe walls. But recently opened Punta Caliza, where I spend my first couple of nights, subtly bucks the trend. One block inland, the 12-bedroom property has proportions scaled to the tiny islet. And off the shady reception I see its inner secret: the entirety of the triangular courtyard is a lime-green swimming pool. The water, which laps up to the doors of the rooms, cools the building and invites post-beach dips.

The Muñoz family decided to move to the island from Tabasco around the time of my last visit. Son Cuauhtémoc (27) and daughter Claudia (24) run Punta Caliza day to day, and Claudia was also behind the design concept. “I was studying architecture at Guadalajara’s Jesuit University and I decided to have a competition, inviting my professors to submit designs,” she says, playing down the originality of the approach. “It was important to my dad to make use of a sustainable red cedar forest he planted in Tabasco some years ago. Two young architects at the Estudio Macías Peredo came up with a plan which did that.” The geometric lines and the stucco, which uses limestone and the red bark of the chukun tree, are Mayan. Mangrove provides a natural façade. On the beach side of Punta Caliza is a near-empty lot, but the beach road and most of the adjoining blocks are occupied. “Holbox is changing, and sooner or later someone will build next door,” says Claudia. “So we wanted the main focus to be on the inside, not on the sea view or how it looks from the exterior.”

I am invited for dinner with the family – the father is also called Cuauhtémoc, after the last Aztec emperor – and their friends. Chef Ricardo Soancatl whisks up lobster tail, octopus ceviche and avocado and coconut ice cream. We drink white grape from Baja’s Valle de Guadalupe.

DON VICTOR'S GUITARS

Everything on Holbox is close – only five kilometres or so are inhabited. I get around the sandy streets on foot or by bicycle. It takes only a couple of days to meet just about everyone. The luthier, Don Víctor, decamped to Holbox from Mexico City when a Stradivarius he was looking after was stolen. It stressed him out too much. He spends his mornings fishing and is said to own just two shirts and two pairs of trousers. He teaches English to children at Casa de la Cultura and gives guitar lessons – though the students have to make their own guitar first.

THE BEACH ON ISLA HOLBOX

I soon figure out the beach tribes. Young fishermen hang out at the open-air bars to the west. Close by are Mexican couples, sucking on ice-cold Dos Equis and Tecate. European and American travellers waft along in white linen, or do yoga, before heading for smoky mezcals at Bar Arena or sublime sashimi at Casa Las Tortugas’ rustic bar – both rooftop hotspots with dusk breezes and views over the mangrove-fringed township. Workers unwinding favour the buzzy Hot Corner.

One person’s limitation is another man’s luxury. Wi-Fi is patchy on Holbox. Like most visitors, I stop bothering after a couple of days. There are hardly any cars – trucks are allowed on to collect rubbish and deliver drinks – and no jet-skis, no water-bananas, no speedboats. Live music ends at midnight. A single band plays all the island’s gigs; occasionally I catch Latin swing, lusty rancherasor cumbia drifting from one of the beach clubs, but there’s a calm just a few feet beyond. Holbox is polite, considerate, anything but brash.

Around 1,000 people live here permanently. On any day during peak season – June to September and Christmas – there might be a similar number of incomers. This place has to work to preserve its character – its Mexicanidad. Approaching the plaza, I’m reassured when I see a grinning skull atop a pink ballgown promoting a hacienda. A moment later, a man runs past carrying a full-size skeleton – this one got up as a pirate. Gentrify all you like but la meurte remains indigenous; you’ve got to laugh when the end is nigh.

Islanders take downtime very seriously. When a large family has a fiesta, the local school might close for the day. It’s an addictive ethos. For several mornings I stick to a routine that barely alters. I swim in the lull before breakfast, content to watch everyone else take off on diving and fishing trips. Breakfast is granola and zingy juices or carby chilaquiles with tomatillos, cheese, frijoles and egg. As the day heats up, I retreat to a thatched lounger at Casa Las Tortugas to read, write, siesta and work my way through the cocktail menu, discovering aged-agave spirit goes best with fresh cinnamon and grapefruit. Evenings are lazily social; more drinks, ceviche on the sand at Punta Coco, refined suppers of tenderloin and Yucatec-style snapper at CasaSandra.

One morning I go kayaking with Buenos Aires-born Johnny, paddling deep into the mangroves to see herons, ospreys and crocodiles darting into channels full of catfish. We’re completely alone. “I send my family pictures of this, but they don’t get it,” Johnny tells me. “They probably think it’s just another Caribbean island, a beach and blue sea.” But Holbox isn’t that: it’s a sanctuary, a biodiversity hotspot, still unsullied, untamed.

Don Carmelo sails me two hours east of Holbox, where the Gulf meets the darker, cooler Caribbean Sea. This is where whale sharks – which islanders call dominos for their spotted markings – come to feed on plankton. Even with the other boats and snorkellers bobbing around, the sudden sight – and proximity – of a 10m fish is a solemn moment.

Carmelo, a third-generation fisherman and true holboxeño, tells me how the island is taking control of its affairs. “My grandfather saw dominos every day, but never thought much of them. They’d be harpooned by accident, as the spots make them look like tiger sharks. Now we know they have a value. There are too many boats, but at least it’s orderly. Any more building has to proceed likewise. We accept development, even further along the island, but it must be careful and low impact.”

In the open sea I swim beside six or seven whale sharks. At a lonely inshore cape I dive with huge rays, a turtle, a nurse shark on the prowl, barracuda, angelfish and parrotfish. The sea is mirror-flat and all this life – all the commotion – lies below.

Finally, at the end of the day, I catch up with the flamingos, spread out along the sandbank, dancing to free up food from the powdery seabed. The distant vision of these pink giants is saturated by the late-afternoon light. Behind is Holbox, a wobbly mirage in the heat haze, not quite real, not quite there.

Punta CalizaManager Cuauhtémoc Muñoz’s passion for the island is amazing. The villa is pared-down and laid-back yet very slick. The secret pool is a great extra. Doubles from AED 859; 0052-99-8800 0119, puntacaliza.com

GETTING THEREAudley Travel (0044-199-383 8670, audleytravel.com) offers tailor-made trips to Mexico, including one night in Cancún and six nights on Isla Holbox staying at Punta Caliza, Ser CasaSandra and Casa Las Tortugas, with excursions such as snorkelling and whale watching. Emirates (emirates.com) flies from Dubai to Cancún via New York’s JFK; from Cancún, it’s a two-hour drive to Chiquilá, where a 30-minute ferry ride gets you to Isla Holbox.

This story originally ran in the October 2018 edition of Condé Nast Traveller UK